I Believe, I Believe, I Believe!
by Zinfandelli
Summary: Jack has come to the horrific conclusion that Belief is the opposite of what he wants! Who else can he go to but the Guardian's greatest enemy for help? (Blackice!) (Warnings for Pitch being a typical manipulative asshole :D)


This wasn't right.

How could he have been so stupid to not see it sooner? Oh, Jack knew. He knew and as he dug his nails into his arms, grinding his teeth together to stop the shout, he felt the tears in his eyes as realization hit.

It shouldn't be like this. Never should have been. He was too stupid to see it for what it was when it started. Too stupid, naive, young...happy. But Moons! Shit. And it was the moon's fault wasn't it?

Jack looked up from his spot amid his frozen lake and took solace in the snow clouds blocking the sky.

He was a Guardian.

A damnable abomination of greed. Guardian. He couldn't even say he was tricked. He wanted to be one after Easter. After they corralled and punished the Boogeyman condemning him to torture for however long eternity might end up being.

Tears froze at his chin, the salt not strong enough to stop his chill.

And he punched the ice, bloody knuckles smearing across it's pristine surface. It didn't so much as fracture.

Jack bent over on his knees, pushed back sobs making him tremble, and he pressed his face to the perfectly smooth ice of his own making. It would be perfect. No longer was his ice jagged or rolled. Nothing marred his craft, every snowflake perfectly unique, every frond of frost scrawling flawlessly outwards. He was too powerful to make mistakes now. His own element displaying his depravity.

And he did shout. His cheek against the ice, teeth scraping into it, tears freezing his skin to the surface. Jack wept inconsolably, scratching his fingernails across it attempting to mar his own doing. It only resulted in bloody fingertips. No child would ever drown in this lake again.

He should have stuck with his convictions. Jack Frost was in the right. Jack Frost knew what it meant to be a spirit of belief, even if he had none of his own. It was because he had none that he was saved. It was because he was alone that he saw the truth.

But power blinded him. Damn it all to eternity that it had. Belief surged through him and Jack couldn't help but want more. The most potent drug imaginable provided by the most welcoming dealers in the world. He craved it, addicted, doing everything in his power to gain more, to get kids to believe, in him, in Jack Frost, the bringer of winter fun!

What a laugh.

He was a joke.

A spirit of ice bringing fun to children in winter? No. Never. What a happy fantasy he bought into. That kids bought into. And they were so easily manipulated. Once you had their belief they would believe in anything, everything, you said! Blinded little slaves to your every will.

They demanded toys at christmas, candy at easter, money for lost teeth, greedy grubby little fingers that wanted to play more, more, more! And who was Jack to deny his first believers? Yes, more playing, more fun! Never ending fun!

Jack groaned and pressed himself as flat against the ice as he could. He didn't want it. Not anymore. The Guardians didn't change, not one bit. None of them cared about the children, or each other, just their jobs, their roles, their protection, their own belief. No room for Jack. He was selfish, didn't he have a right? No. Never had the right, never.

Not in three-hundred year did he have even a chance at redemption, what would give him the right to it now?

Then, the fear set in.

He shivered in the cold as creeping tendrils of dread washed down his spine. Fear. Pitch. The things they did to the Boogeyman, all because he was 'evil'. He had to be stopped, he was going to kill Jamie!

No…

He was going to take all the belief for himself.

Jamie didn't matter, his life was of no consequence. Not to the Guardians, not to Pitch. Was Jack the only one who cared? Could he even say he cared for the kid? Bothered to be concerned whether he lived or died? No, not hardly. Jamie was only special because he believed. Any child in the world would do to center the fight around, if only they believed. Jack had no right to claim he cared. No right…

What would he do? What could he do? The belief was eating him alive! Everything was to make children see him, everything would be fine if they just believed! The most powerful magic is simply 'I Believe!'.

Jack didn't want it.

It was evil! Manipulative! Just as bad as the Nightmare King's plan to rule with fear! They ruled with gullibility.

And the other spirits who challenged the Guardian's iron fist of control? The other ones that came after Pitch, wanting what Pitch wanted, What the Guardians hoarded? How many countless 'villains' would Jack be asked sweetly, beguilingly, to defeat?

Belief made him nearly undefeatable. He was on par with Sandy, the only other Guardian to really have an element to control. Hope, wonder, and memories, while potent weren't so easily adaptable into razor sharp knives, choking whips, and freezing death.

When had Jack turned into such a violent thing?

Laughable.

He was always an instrument of death. He was winter itself! He killed when he didn't even know it.

Death.

Was Pitch dead too? He was Jack's first, the one to pull him into this quicksand existence. If it wasn't for Pitch Black-!

No.

Jack couldn't blame him anymore. Refused. He was to blame, just himself.

But, he could go check. He could go check to see if Pitch lived, maybe...maybe the Nightmare King, the ultimate enemy of the Guardians could help him. Help him break away, fall back into obscurity, save his eternal soul from...whatever this purgatory was.

Tearing his face from the ice, breaking his tears from his skin, Jack sat up. He rubbed at the redness it left behind, making it worse, angry looking, almost like he was alive. Ironic.

The entrance to Pitch's lair was still close, even if it was filled back in. Burgess was some sort of cosmic joke. Jack flew over, nearly forgetting his staff, he hardly needed it anymore.

The ground was dead where the hole should be and Jack easily ripped it open by seeping ice into the dirt and fracturing it. The block crumbled apart and Jack flit down into the darkness with no reservations. His strength of belief washing away any fear of mortal peril.

The place looked the same as ever, once he entered the main cavern. Dark, dirty, staircases and archways leading to god knows where. The cages were all hanging with their doors open.

Jack landed and walked quietly up to the glowing metal globe, alight with the belief of millions. He grimaced at the sight and turned away.

"Pitch?" He called to thin air.

There was no answer, and fear started to creep back in. Was he dead? There were no nightmares around either, did they kill him? Was that Jack's legacy? Death wherever he went, making a mess of everyth-

Black swept up over the sides of the bridge in front of Jack and his heart raced so fast from the fear and the uncanny relief that Jack barely got a step forwards before millions of yellow eyes blinked to glowing life and overtook him.

His consciousness was immediately whisked away to more blackness.

Countless nightmares plagued his mind as Jack was trapped within his own body. He was vaguely aware of being moved, but his consciousness drifted back away into the induced illusions.

He lost track of time.

It felt like eons of endless scenarios of death and destruction, of being alone and forgotten, of being a greedy king on a mountain.

Finally, Jack bolted upright a shriek on his lips, awake at last. He looked around wildly, his vision still half blurred from the long slumber. Gasping for breath and calm, Jack found he was secured inside a crude makeshift cage erected around Pitch's globe, bars criss crossing through the gaps in the continents.

Jack shuffled quickly to his knees and grabbed at the bars holding him hostage. Fear still pulsed through him as the details of his nightmares faded to obscurity.

"Pitch?!" He shouted. This time, there was an answer.

"Jack Frost." the shadows whispered. His figure grew from the blackness to a not so menacing height, reduced in his weakness. Pitch's yellow eyes glowed where his face should be, but he refused to step from the shadows and take his more tangible form, opting to remain just a man shaped silhouette.

"Pitch, let me out!" Jack demanded, his frost starting to curl up the bars that he clutched.

"Why?"

"Because-!"

"Because?" Pitch cut him off, "Because the Guardian of Fun decided to harass me on some stupid whim and barge into my home to gloat, and gain more glory? More belief?"

Jack recoiled as if slapped. "N-no," his retort weak.

"Your dreams are delicious, Jack. Your fear quite delectable. Why, if you hadn't shown up I would still be some puddle of darkness barely able to move. But, look now! See this?" Pitch held his hand forwards and his skin defined itself, turning gray, fingernails becoming discernible.

"This is your fault. Making another mess without even trying, helping the Boogeyman regain his strength," Pitch mocked.

But, Jack was too fast for him. He reached out and grabbed Pitch's hand, pulling him closer. The wraith stumbled out of his shadows, they clinging to him desperately in the light of the globe.

Jack held the hand with both of his, running a thumb across Pitch's palm marvelling as the wrinkles and lines appeared, his own heart pounding with an excited sort of adrenaline fueled fear.

"I'm helping." Jack whispered.

Pitch finally found the strength to yank his hand back and out of Jack's grip. He cradled it to his chest like he was hurt. "What?"

"It's not a mess! I'm helping!" Jack practically wheezed as he reached his hands out through the bars again.

"Have you gone mad?" Pitch asked taken aback.

"No!" Jack practically laughed. "No! I've woken up! I'm awake now…" Jack trailed off as he stared almost dumbly at Pitch. "Pitch…"

Who was almost running back into his shadows he was so alarmed, and Jack could only tell so much because his face was defining out of the darkness even as Jack babbled.

"Pitch. Pitch, I'll help you. Let me help you!"

But, instead of replying, Pitch began to pace, a frown across his lips, his fingers at his chin. He muttered, "The nightmares couldn't have broken him already, could they? I am not that powerful yet...What…"

"Cold and Dark!" Jack practically shouted as he followed Pitch's movement inside his spherical cage.

Pitch stopped dead at the words and whipped his head back to stare at Jack.

"Cold and Dark, you remember, right?" Jack tripped on, eager. "I know what it's like to long for a family, you said that! You said it! I'll do it, let's do that, I'll be your family, Pitch. Please!" He was getting desperate.

"You have a family already." Pitch said, warily.

"Ok fine, no family, whatever! Keep me here, I'll stay right here, how does that sound?"

"What is wrong with you…?"

"Nothing! Oh Gods, everything. Everything is wrong, Pitch. You're the only one who can fix it, I'll help, you've got to help me."

"Help you, now? You need to get your story straight, Frost."

"No, no. I'll help you and it will help me. I can't be a Guardian anymore, I can't. It's not what I want, you know how to not be a Guardian! If i'm not one it helps! It'll help, it'll fix everything. How do I not be a Guardian, Pitch?"

He was smiling now, a shark toothed grin as he approached Jack's cage, but still kept out of reaching distance from the boy's grabbing fingers. "You have to do something Bad, Jack. My, what have they done to you? Are you desperate enough to play evil?"

"Bad? I can do bad, I've been on the Naughty List for centuries. Let's do something bad!"

"I suppose killing a few kids would be quickest. Manny would kick you out right quick if you offed a few believers."

"K-kill?" Jack backed away from the bars to the middle of the globe, hugging his hands in closely. "No, I can't kill. Not kids. Thats not what I want…"

"What do you want, then?"

"Not this! Anything but this! The belief is like poison! I can't take it, I don't want it! It's too much and greedy and wrong!" Jack sank down low, his fingers twisting at his hoodie, a sob escaping his lips before he could stop it. He was breaking all over again. Pitch wasn't helping, this wasn't the solution he was after. Pitch wouldn't take his belief, he couldn't stop him from being a Guardian, he would only...could only…

"My dear boy," Pitch crooned as he stepped up to the cage and reached a hand in, fingers just catching the tips of Jack's hair. "Look what you've become. Belief is a blessing, you know. But you wouldn't, would you? Never knowing greed, never having the chance to have a want so filled."

Jack couldn't help that he leaned into the touch, letting those fingers thread into his hair, feeling warmth seep into his scalp. He sought more and pressed up into Pitch's hand, a soft moan in his throat now instead of a sob.

"They are greedy, aren't they, those Guardians? Hoarding their belief, keeping it scarce and all to themselves."

Jack nodded, it was exactly what he'd been thinking.

"But you, Oh, Jack, so pure, so good. Cannot even comprehend the long game that they are playing, can you? They don't care about children like you do, do they? They aren't….real Guardians. Not like you are."

And that had Jack sitting back up, wide blue eyes startled as they found Pitch's gold creased with sympathy. He shook his head, pulling away from Pitch's hand.

"I'm not a Guardian, I don't want to be…" His voice rough with sorrow.

"Shhh, Jack." Pitch hushed soothingly. He then stepped through the bars of the cage, wrapping Jack in his arms, pulling him into a hug, pressing his head against his chest and stroking his hair.

Jack accepted the touch stiffly, Pitch already stronger in his embrace fueled by Jack's own fear. Soon he melted into the hug and wrapped his own arms around Pitch's middle.

"That's it. There. Jack, you are looking at it all wrong. It's not you who shouldn't be a Guardian. Not you, who is so strong and good, a Hero. No. It is they who should be demoted. They who are so old and addled that they have forgotten their purposes. They who are greedy for belief and keep it to themselves. You are not wrong. They are. Shhh, no more tears now."

But Jack couldn't help it. He trembled with sobs and felt his ice cold tears wet Pitch's shadows as he buried his face into his chest, so warm that his tears had no time to freeze upon his skin. He cried because he was confirmed. He was right, Pitch agreed with him. The others were...they lost sight of their roles. They didn't care about the children…

"Such fear. Come now, Jack. I enjoy it. You came to me for help, and I will do it. Calm yourself, we will make things right."


End file.
